News stories from Saturday February 3, 1973

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Henry Kissinger will go to Peking for five days of "concrete consultations" with Chinese leaders following his trip to Hanoi next week, the White House announced today. This will be the first high-level meeting between Chinese and American officials since Mr. Kissinger's journey to Peking last June, and it is expected to provide an opportunity to explore thoroughly the future of Chinese-American ties in the wake of the Vietnam settlement. [New York Times] In a report prepared for Congress but withheld by the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency has recommended using subsidy payments or tax incentives to promote the reuse of municipal and industrial solid waste. The agency also recommends that action be taken to end the disparities in freight rates, which, it contends, give an "artificial economic advantage" to the users of "virgin" materials and thus discourage the use of reclaimed materials. [New York Times] Blacks made a "significant showing" in elections in the 11 states of the South last year, placing 600 blacks in public office, according to the Voter Education Project, a nonprofit organization, in a report on black political gains. The greatest advances were made in Alabama, and the report cited the city of Selma in that state as symbolic in a year of impressive victories. [New York Times] The Corvair case, which established Ralph Nader as a leading consumer advocate, erupted with fresh complaints of telephone taps, shadowing and suppression of federal data, raising anew safety questions about the trouble-plagued car. Agents of the FBI in Detroit also have moved into the case, which Mr. Nader noted was older than the Vietnam war. Harley Copp, a Ford Motor Company executive who told a Senate investigating committee last year that the testing he had supervised had found the General Motors-built Corvair to be hazardous, alleged that his Dearborn home has since been under surveillance and his phones bugged. [New York Times] At least six persons were killed and 17 were wounded in a night of violence in Belfast as British troops clashed with guerrillas and Protestant gunmen attacked people on the streets of Roman Catholic areas. Earlier today, much of Belfast's center was evacuated when a hijacked truck with 2,000 gallons of gasoline and a bomb aboard was abandoned in the street. [New York Times] The final economic statistics for 1972 show that the Soviet leadership was unable to keep its promise to the average citizen to expand consumer production faster than heavy industry. The production of such key consumer items as milk, sugar, cooking oil, shoes and washing machines was lower in 1972 than in 1971, Clothing production inched upward by 2% or less. [New York Times]